Spring is in the air. Flowers are blooming. The sun is shining. You know what that means? It’s time to do a little spring cleaning – of your store’s inventory!
Spring is the ideal time to get rid of underperforming products and make room for the fresh and new. And, with the COVID-19 pandemic adding additional considerations and challenges, tackling the following annual inventory management checklist is more important than ever.
1. Take stock.
As you shift from winter to spring, you’ll want to stock your store with new products, but first, you have to assess what you’ve got on hand. Start with a basic audit comparing what you originally ordered and what’s still in stock. Do a physical count and compare it against your inventory reports. Your POS system should make this simple.
POSIM enables you to digitally reconcile your inventory across thousands of SKUs, accounting for differences due to damaged items, shipment errors, or shoplifting. Plus, POSIM integrates your brick-and-mortar inventory with your e-commerce website, so you get an accurate, all-in view of your stock.
2. Determine inventory turnover rates.
In a perfect world, everything you stock resonates with your customers and sells at your desired margins. In the real world, you have some hits and misses. By tracking your inventory turnover rate, also known as stock turn, you keep tabs on the number of times each item sells through in a month or a year.
Not only will this report tell you what’s hot and what’s not, but it’s also an important metric for tracking how well you’re managing the order flow with your suppliers. When the turnover rate for an item is high, it means it’s selling well, but you’re not overstocking the amount you have in inventory. Low inventory turnover rates show you where you’re holding too much on-hand inventory compared to sales.
By monitoring inventory turnover rate trends on an ongoing basis, you can get an early indicator when sales are exceeding or underperforming projections.
Related: The 7 Essential Metrics Every Retailer Must Track
3. Move low-turn items.
As part of your annual inventory spring cleaning, it’s time to make the call on low-turn items. While these decisions can be difficult, remember to view slow-moving inventory as unavailable funds that you could put to better use.
While the most common methods of getting rid of underperforming items are discounts and clearance sales, also consider options to bundle them with higher-performing items, or create packaged or kit offers. POSIM’s kit builder feature makes pulling together separate inventory items and selling them as one product simple.
Related: The Secret to Retail Success? 3 Must-Have Inventory Management Capabilities
4. Create a marketing event.
Just because you’re selling off low performing items doesn’t mean you can’t also turn it into a special offer for your best customers. For example, send an email invite to preferred customers for a first-look event that makes the special pricing or packages exclusively available to them for a set time period. They’ll appreciate the recognition, and they’re likely to purchase full-price items at the same time!
With POSIM’s integration with MailChimp, you can easily sync your latest customer data to send targeted messages in minutes.
5. Fine-tune your inventory management.
Spring cleaning is a great time to make sure you’re optimizing your inventory management. Solid inventory management sets you up to gain efficiencies by reducing overstocking, which frees up cash and in-store space. At the same time, automating and electronically managing your end-to-end inventory processes within your POS system cuts down on time spent and administrative errors.
Most importantly, establishing good inventory management enables you to better identify and analyze sales patterns, implement accurate forecasting, and keep the focus on your highest-margin items and your store’s overall profitability. POSIM delivers robust, integrated inventory management, so you’re able to make data-driven decisions and grow your business. This spring, contact us for a demo to see what POSIM can do for your business.